D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not exactly sure what constraints a RPG has to satisfy to respond to your point. I'm pretty confident that skill challenge vs combat in 4e D&D wouldn't be counted by you as an answer.
But what about Torchbearer? The resolution framework for all conflicts is the same, whether combat or social or magical or fleeing or whatever. In our game the highest skill at start was the Dwarven Outcast's Fighter 4. Well into level 4 he is still Fighter 4. On the other hand, the Elven Dreamwalker started with Lore Master 3 but is now Lore Master 5 - the highest skill in the party. This has been driven significantly by the fact that Lore Master is a key skill in Trick and Riddle conflicts, and the PCs in our game have done a lot of tricking and riddling.

Social interaction as puzzle-solving isn't very verisimilitudinous, in my experience.

How do you find out what people want?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not exactly sure what constraints a RPG has to satisfy to respond to your point. I'm pretty confident that skill challenge vs combat in 4e D&D wouldn't be counted by you as an answer.

Its close, but probably not, since its basically just an accumulated skill-check system that permits for different skills situationally (if I'm misremembering, forgive me; the campaign of it I was in was some years ago).

But what about Torchbearer? The resolution framework for all conflicts is the same, whether combat or social or magical or fleeing or whatever.

The question is, does it do that by simplifying combat or expanding everything else? If its like most (I'm blanking on the term, the opposite of task-resolution) systems, I think likely the former, which is not what I'm looking for.

To give a hypothetical example, in an intrusion system, you'd have multiple rolls made, with "maneuvers" that represented approaches to intruding, with accumulated values that moved you in steps along the way, and failure would accumulate problem points you'd have to overcome or at some point they'd cause the intrusion as such, to fail (though you might still be able to brute force through it at the costs associated with that, and if that was impossible or undesirable you'd have to try and flee).

In our game the highest skill at start was the Dwarven Outcast's Fighter 4. Well into level 4 he is still Fighter 4. On the other hand, the Elven Dreamwalker started with Lore Master 3 but is now Lore Master 5 - the highest skill in the party. This has been driven significantly by the fact that Lore Master is a key skill in Trick and Riddle conflicts, and the PCs in our game have done a lot of tricking and riddling.

As I said, that doesn't necessary say anything without a sense how detailed Trick and Riddle conflicts are.

 

[Hussar]

I think it would be very difficult to write a system as granular as you're looking for @Thomas Shey while still being robust enough to handle all sorts of different challenges. Obviously it would be hard for a system to handle a short price negotiation (random example) and a several day long breaking and entering heist task using the same mechanics without losing something of the granularity along the way.

The other option is to break up the longer tasks into shorter chunks and then resolve each of those with more granularity, but, again, that has the issues of bogging down play and turning into massive dice rolling sessions. It's a really fine line to walk.

OTOH, I do agree that 5e D&D could use an optional module for extending and expanding the skill section. I would buy a book like that in a minute.

 

[Pedantic]

I think it would be very difficult to write a system as granular as you're looking for @Thomas Shey while still being robust enough to handle all sorts of different challenges. Obviously it would be hard for a system to handle a short price negotiation (random example) and a several day long breaking and entering heist task using the same mechanics without losing something of the granularity along the way.

The other option is to break up the longer tasks into shorter chunks and then resolve each of those with more granularity, but, again, that has the issues of bogging down play and turning into massive dice rolling sessions. It's a really fine line to walk.

OTOH, I do agree that 5e D&D could use an optional module for extending and expanding the skill section. I would buy a book like that in a minute.

This is a mountain/molehill situation; you can absolutely write a lot of actions with specified outcomes, and generic resolution systems (item harness and HP, for example). The key is to build your challenges thus that they can be resolved with the sequential and repeated application of those, instead of building a system (or systems) to model each challenge.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is a mountain/molehill situation; you can absolutely write a lot of actions with specified outcomes, and generic resolution systems (own harness and HP, for example). The key is to build your challenges this that can be resolved with the sequential and repeated application of those, instead of building a system (or systems) to model each challenge.

Though to be fair, while I find that sort of thing superior to the one-roll approach, it doesn't actually make enough distinction to suit me; if something is going to be a major element of a game experience, I really prefer some actions that relate to it that are not generic.

 

[pemerton]

How do you find out what people want?

By observing and talking to them. Not, generally, by asking them the right questions. I'm not a police investigator or interrogator.

 

[pemerton]

The question is, does it do that by simplifying combat or expanding everything else? If its like most (I'm blanking on the term, the opposite of task-resolution) systems, I think likely the former, which is not what I'm looking for.

To give a hypothetical example, in an intrusion system, you'd have multiple rolls made, with "maneuvers" that represented approaches to intruding, with accumulated values that moved you in steps along the way, and failure would accumulate problem points you'd have to overcome or at some point they'd cause the intrusion as such, to fail (though you might still be able to brute force through it at the costs associated with that, and if that was impossible or undesirable you'd have to try and flee).



As I said, that doesn't necessary say anything without a sense how detailed Trick and Riddle conflicts are.

This thread is probably not the place to set out the Torchbearer conflict resolution in detail. The approaches to success with the movement in steps along the way is handled via the Attack, Defend and Manoeuvre actions. The accumulation of problems unfolds in two ways - immediate problems or obstacles arise via the checks made on the other side; while more long term or latent problems are established via the "compromise" that is owed by the successful part at the end of the conflict: the compromise is established having regard to the fiction established by the resolution of the actions declared in the course of the conflict.

The last two Trick/Riddle conflicts in our game were (1) a Troll Haunt trying to lure the PCs into the middle of the Troll Fens so that it could catch and eat them - this was a GM-initiated conflict, after the players failed their Pathfinder test during a journey - and (2) the PCs trying to persuade the bandits at the Moathouse that they were emissaries of another bandit, Roy, there to forge an alliance - this was a player-initiated conflict, an attempt to secure food and shelter.

The players lost both conflicts. In the case of (1),that meant that they found themselves lost in the middle of the swamp. But the Dwarven PC's "riddle" - Whose keys do I have in my pocket? (he has two of them, collected during his adventures) - had resulted in the Troll losing a good chunk of its own disposition in the conflict, and so (as a substantial compromise) it went back to its Troll-hole to consult its book of riddles to try and see what sorts of keys a Dwarven traveller might be carrying.

In the case of (2), that meant that the bandits were not tricked, and achieved their intent, of having the PCs surrender. But again a compromise was owed - a minor one. Earlier the PCs had captured a Dire Wolf from the Moathouse and persuaded it to join with them, and the Dwarven PC had relied on the presence of the Wolf to reinforce the impression that the PCs were allies of, rather than enemies of, the Moathouse bandits. The minor compromise took the form of the bandits accepting that the Wolf was still one of them, and had carried out its mission of bringing intruders to the Moathouse, meaning that the PCs now have a Wolf ally "on the inside" with the bandits.

I don't know if this satisfies your demands of granularity or not. Based on actual play, I think it produces pretty interesting and unexpected outcomes that reflect player choices about how to approach the situation in the fiction, and what elements of their PCs and their PCs' circumstances to put at stake as part of that approach.

 

[Iosue]

Just to add to @Iosue's reply: my understanding is that the imperative is hypothetical, not categorical: something like if you want to maintain intra-party cross-class combat balance, then you should have around about X encounters with Y difficulties between long rests, with Z short rests interspersed between them.

It's not even that. The DMG advice is silent on the subject of intra-party cross-class combat balance.

The DMG advice basically goes like this:
To determine if a particular monster is a suitable (i.e., not too powerful) opponent, use CR.
To determine the potential difficulty of an encounter, use the party's XP thresholds.
To determine how many encounters a party can get through in a day, use the Adventuring Day XP table.

This is the whole of the Adventuring Day advice in the DMG (p. 84)

The Adventuring Day
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely to progress.
For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day. Add together the values of all party members to get a total for the party's adventuring day. This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest.

[Adventuring Day XP table omitted]

Short Rests
In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about one-third and two-thirds of the way through the day.

People see "long rest," and because casters get all their resources back on a long rest, assume that pushing the party to needing a long rest is necessary to maintain cross-class balance, therefore "six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day". Maybe that's a thing, but it's not something the designers ever said or implied, nor what this advice in the DMG is about. It's about HP, hit dice, and possible healing resources.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Social interaction as puzzle-solving isn't very verisimilitudinous, in my experience.

You need to read more Agatha Christie.

 

[pemerton]

You need to read more Agatha Christie.

Yes, Agatha Christie is extremely stylised detective fiction. It's not about verisimilitudinous social interaction.